Dublin uillean piper and cellist. He was on Cran’s first album The Crooked Stair (if you have a copy, please drop me a line!) and played cello on DeDannan’s Ballroom to great effect, imho.
Whatever happened to him?
Didn’t he play pipes on one of Michael O Suillebhean’s pieces? If you google him on the Irish webpages he is being busy recording with an awful load of different people.
Hmm, wasn’t that an English lassie? Her name escapes me but it was something like Caroline Lavelle. I remember a rumour to the effect that FG heard her busking in Covent Garden and asked her to join the band, and another to the effect that she left halfway through a US tour with them, due to some, er, slight difference of opinion or possibly a personality conflict with him (surely not!).
Edit: there you go http://www.carolinelavelle.com/adb.html:
In the mid-1980’s, Frankie Gavin, leader of Ireland’s innovative De Dannan band, spotted Caroline Lavelle among buskers playing Flight of the Bumblebee in Covent Garden. Lavelle knew little about Irish music, but, once persuaded that Gavin was not trying to chat her up, agreed to learn. Folk audiences soon took the implausible presence of the glamorous young Englishwoman whose grandfather, a conductor, had worked with Elgar.
He also played 'cello with Gerry O’Connor and his late wife, Eithne Ni Uallachain on their second La Lugh album (Brighid’s Kiss).
-B.
Hah. I wonder how I got that one mixed up.
Man, I’m losing it. Is he from Dublin or Belfast? 
The article suggests he’s from the North.
djm
Neil’s from Belfast, or certainly was living there when a member of “Cran”.
Neil is from Belfast
Hello
I just saw Neil on the telly. It was a program called Christmas in Dingle.
He was playing cello as part of the ‘Western Ocean String Quartet’ a group that also included Seamus Maguire.
He also played a tune on the whistle (a susato; I know ye whistlers like that type of info), a jig that he wrote himself.
The program was a typical Philip King production, full of shite. It had less to do with Dingle and the people who are from there and more to do with
the ‘big’ names that have moved into the area (Nigel Kennedy, Shaun Davey etc.).
My 88 year old mother-in-law had dinner with us today. She is from that part of the world (near Cuas) and reminised about a very different Dingle than the one on the telly.
Regards
John Moran
Hehe, I saw some of that, I caught a few minutes of Eoin Duignan and was out of there again, too Hummingbird-y. Finished the dinner before Harry Potter started. 
Clare was white for a while at least today. Hope you’re well John, best wishes.
Hello
Thanks Peter for all you help during the year.
Keep well
John Moran